


Stop The War, I Want To Go Home

by Warp5Complex_Archivist



Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-03-08
Updated: 2006-03-08
Packaged: 2018-08-16 04:01:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8086294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Warp5Complex_Archivist/pseuds/Warp5Complex_Archivist
Summary: Malcolm Reed is someone else's god. (06/07/2004)





	

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Kylie Lee, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Warp 5 Complex](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Warp_5_Complex), the software of which ceased to be maintained and created a security hazard. To make future maintenance and archive growth easier, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in August 2016. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but I may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Warp 5 Complex collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/Warp5Complex).

  
Author's notes: About Julia: her family doesn't belong to me as, if I did my calculations right, a brother of hers (who is never mentioned) will become the grandfather (or great grandfather, I'm not sure which) of Doctor Julian Bashir, the CMO of Deep Space Nine.  


* * *

I never asked for this.

Yes, I loved a good fight. Yes, I wanted more chances to blow things up. Yes, I just wanted to make them pay for what they did to our planet.

But I never asked for this.

I never asked for a war that's lasting seven years and counting. I never asked for genocide. I never asked to bury the only people I've ever truly cared about. I never asked to be a leader. I never asked them to follow me. I never asked them to look at me like I'm their last hope.

I never, ever asked for this.

I never asked for these nights here. These nights sleeping in these tunnels because we fight for what we believe in, because we are the underground, the resistance.

I don't want this, I never wanted this, and I will not ever want this. The only thing I want right now is for this to end. I know it can never go back to being the way it was before, but it's got to be better than this. It's got to be better than burying everyone: Jonathan, T'Pol, Charles, Travis, Hoshi, Phlox...

I'm the last. And therefore, the people made me their leader. First it was Jonathan, because he was a captain; then it was Charles, because he was brilliant; and now it is me, because I am their hope. They put their hope in me because I refuse to die, not until this is over. They put their hope in me because they think I can stop the Xindi.

And maybe I can. Maybe I can stop them and maybe then everything can go back to being the way it was. Yet not quite because nothing can ever be the same again, because I can't fix this, because I am not a god.

I tell this to someone one day, right before we go into what we hope is going to be the last battle.

"I'm not a god," I say.

Doctor Julia Bashir shakes her head. She's the last actual doctor we have in the resistance. "No one's asking you to be a god, Malcolm," she says, looking at me. "They're just asking you to be their hope."

And now, with everyone lined up, all breaking with malnutrition and makeshift weapons and tattered clothes and looking at me with hopeful eyes, I'm not sure I can be their hope: because I think it takes a god to be their hope. And I'm not a god, just a man.

Julia is standing beside me and she kisses me cheek. She tells me it's for luck. For me, it's the one bright moment of an ever darkening day. And later, as I fight, I can still feel her lips pressing on my flesh and I think that maybe I can be their hope and maybe I don't have to be a god for it.

Because I'm just a man who wants to end a war he never asked for.


End file.
